The Mask, Cracked
by Sophia the Scribe
Summary: A short one-shot considering Susan's thoughts and actions preceding and following the train crash.


Disclaimer: C. S. Lewis owns Susan Pevensie, along with her character, connections, and circumstances.

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She wore a mask. There was really no other way to describe it.

After all, Susan knew—logically—it was impossible. It was a childhood game that her siblings had never grown out of. It made them different: and that was something she couldn't deal with. And so she covered it. It had never happened. Of course.

And yet, her hands remembered embroidery she had never learned. Her feet knew dance steps none of her friends recognized. And she could settle disputes and see through lies with an ease born of long experience.

Most of the time, she pushed these disturbing thoughts to the back of her mind, ignored, unacknowledged. But they would come to torment her in the middle of sleepless nights, when she did not have her parties and friends to distract her. Sometimes she even wept for all that she had lost—not only a crown and a country, but now her character and her siblings and her faith itself. And yet, even as she wept, she knew that in the morning she would get up, laugh at her midnight fantasies, and face the "real world" and all her popular friends with her mask firmly in place. For how else would she deal with her loss? How else would she fit in?

But then, one morning, in the midst of her busy, empty life came the telegram. And a gaping, marring crack opened in the mask.

First it was just the grief: the Professor and Aunt Polly, Eustace and Jill, aunts and uncles and cousins whose wholesome, lively company she had so turned her back on; her mother and father, so surprised and delighted at the changes wrought in their children when they returned from the country, but so disappointed at her recent choices; Lucy, brave, joyful Lucy whom nothing could force or entice from her faith; Edmund, merciful and just, the forgiven and saved traitor; Peter, the family's rock and strength, golden and strong in a more-than-physical way. And they were all dead, all gone, and yet somehow she was still alive and alone, no one left for her except Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta, who were hardly comforting; for though her friends cried at her news and offered what platitudes they could, they were too busy, much too busy with the nylons and lipstick and invitations that she had so recently cared so much about. And anyway, none of them understood. No one truly understood.

But then again, even she did not understand at first, did not remember, till the funerals were over and the condolences read and she was back at her flat with none but her memories. And then for the first time in years she took off the mask completely, and wept for her siblings as the Kings and Queens they were. Laments that she had thought long forgotten poured from her tongue as she mourned the Valiant and the Just and the Magnificent. And her heart remembered the truth as her mascara streaked dark lines down her cheeks and her lipstick smeared.

But her head yet rejected what her heart knew, and the next day she once again donned the mask, and shunned all thoughts of her past. But a cracked mask will not stay on: it must either split completely or be repaired, thicker than it ever was before.

And her mask was soon past all repair; for on this day she was to sort through the old house that she and her parents and siblings had once shared. And in the process the mask was shredded and torn from her face and smashed on the ground and stomped on. And she would never again don such a mask, for her eyes had been opened and her folly revealed, and she fell on her knees and cried out to Aslan for forgiveness.

Perhaps one would think that Aslan would now come to her with words of love and hope, and take her to New Narnia to dwell in joy with her family. Yet Aslan does not tend to work in such direct ways in this world, and foolish choices, while they may be forgiven, still bring to bear their natural consequences. So she was left to pick up the pieces of her old life, in sorrow and regret, and figure out how to go on. Finding Aslan's name in this world soothed her longing heart and dried her tears, and her changed behavior drew many true friends about her as she gathered her life together and sought what she would do with the time given to her.

And in the end, surprising all her friends by never seeming interested in marriage, she simply did what she had done in Narnia, following the example of her siblings. For Peter had been a soldier, protecting England as he had Narnia and treating everyone with the honor and nobility befitting a Knight and a King. Edmund had been in law school, no doubt in his mind but that he would be a judge, seeking to pass the fair rulings he had been so known for. And Lucy had gone into medicine, to be a nurse as she had been a healer in Narnia, to comfort and bring joy. And so Susan, always the gracious lady who helped those in need, used what was left of her inheritance to open an orphanage, for children left alone by the war were an all-too-common phenomenon at the time. She loved them as she had loved all her people, and told them the stories of her and her siblings, and when she finally gave her soul to Aslan, the legacy of Narnia lived on through the touched children who now so mourned her loss.

But in New Narnia, Queen Susan the Gentle finally took her rightful place beside her siblings on the Four Thrones, to forever dwell in Aslan's love.

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A/N: I understand this is, perhaps, a rather cliché one-shot formula, but I had a clear picture to write, and figured I might as well go for it. As you may know, this is my first prose fic, and I would appreciate even tough criticism, for I wish to improve my potential in this genre. Thanks!

P.S. Shameful self-promotion: I have two lonely Silmarillion poems languishing review-less on my profile page that would dearly love to be read. As that fandom does not seem as well-traversed as here or LotR, they asked me to fish them out some readers from elsewhere, and I (as a good little poet) am complying with their wishes: if you are at all familiar with the Silm, would you please read them and make them happy?


End file.
